Play and Development: Evolutionary, Sociocultural, and Functional Perspectives

Children's play is a universal human activity, and one that serves a significant purpose in personal development. Throughout this volume, which is an extension of the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society, the editors and contributors explore assumptions about play and its status as a unique and universal activity in humans. As a whole, Play and Development delves into three lines of research concerning this topic: examining these assumptions from an ethological perspective, exploring the view of research that shows play to be socially and culturally constructed, and looking at varied applications of play in the different contexts of childhood. Topics covered in this volume include: *evolutionary foundations and functions of play; *children's play as cultural interpretation; *the use of imagination in children's play; and *the imaginary companions created by children and adults. This volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers in the fields of developmental psychology and cognitive development, and will be sought out by active researchers and practitioners in the field.

Artin Göncü is a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the Univeristy of Illinois at Chicago. He received his B.A. from Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Houston. Previously, he worked as a preschool teacher and research associate at the University of Houston’s Human Development Laboratory, as a post doctoral fellow at the University of Utah, and as the practicum professor of preservice teachers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Göncü established the Master’s program in early childhood education leading to licensure in Illinois. He served on the editorial boards of American Educational Research Journal and Early Childhood Research Quarterly. Göncü is presently on the editorial boards of Intenational Journal of Behavioral Development, Early Education and Care, and Bogazici University Journal of Education. He was a board member of Jean Piaget Society and is presently a board member of Center for Research on Child Culture at Ankara University, Turkey. Among his publications are Analyzing Children’s Dialogues (1984, edited with Frank Kessel), Children in play, story, and school (2001, edited with Elisa Klein), and Children’s engagement in the world: Sociocultural perspectives (1999). Suzanne Gaskins (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. Her primary research interests are cultural influences on human development. She focuses especially on play, informal learning, development of language and thought, and methods for studying everyday behavior. She has written widely on cultural differences in children’s play and on Maya children and families, drawing upon her 30 years of fieldwork in Yucatan, Mexico. She also consults with children’s museums and other informal learning settings on issues of family learning and cultural differences among visitors.